Maintenance vs. mission
Just when the Long Lent of 2002 was coming to a boil in March of that year, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy, took […]
perspective
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Saving Synod-2018 from itself
Anyone looking for a remedy for insomnia might try working through the Instrumentum Laboris, or “working document,” for the XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be […]
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Full-immersion Catholicism
As this Catholic annus horibilis continues to unfold, perhaps some good news is in order; first, a little background. In late 1991, Italy’s Rocco Buttiglione and America’s Michael Novak had […]
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Why we stay, and the Vigano Testimony
The Sunday Mass scriptures during this summer of horrors have often been eerily appropriate, beginning with Jeremiah’s polemic against malfeasant shepherds who mislead the Lord’s flock (July 25) and continuing […]
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Fackenheim’s Law and the Current Catholic Crisis
The medieval Jewish sage Maimonides counted 613 commandments, or mitzvot, in the Law that God gave his people, Israel. The 20th-century Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim, who escaped the Nazis’ genocidal […]
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The current crisis
The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war caused the premature suspension of the First Vatican Council on October 20, 1870 and left the Church’s theological self-understanding somewhat imbalanced. In its first […]
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WYD 1993: The Turning Point
On this 25th anniversary of World Youth Day in Denver, I can’t help sharing one of my favorite personal memories of John Paul II. It was December 15, 2004, and […]
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Fridays without Charles
Take my word for it: You don’t want to be around me at breakfast. I am not a chipper morning person, and it’s best to leave me to the coffee […]
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Affirming and celebrating Humanae Vitae
July 25 is the fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical on the integrity of love and the appropriate means of family planning. Issued during the cultural meltdown […]
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A caveat on the great Tom Wolfe
When the great Tom Wolfe died on May 14 — he of the white suits, the spats, and the prose style as exuberant as his wardrobe — I, like millions […]
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A pastor in full
Almost a quarter-century ago, Father Jay Scott Newman, back in Rome to finish a graduate degree after his priestly ordination in Charleston, took me on an extended ramble around the […]
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The 2018 Summer Reading List
The vacation season is an opportunity to escape TwitterWorld and do some serious reading. These books will help make your summer enjoyable, instructive, or both. Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s […]
